A conventional depilatory device works by grabbing and pulling out hairs. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,900,661 such a machine may use helical spring which define hair-catching gaps. Complex rotary action opens and closes the gaps to allow hairs to be grasped and pulled out. Similarly in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,232,617, 4,079,741, and 4,524,772 helical and arcuate springs are used and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,375 a flexible slit cylinder is used to form hair-grasping slits that are used to pull out the hair.
All such devices are relatively complex and have a uniaxial movement that accounts both for opening and closing the hair-grasping slits and subsequently for pulling out the hair. They work relatively crudely and often so slowly that their action is excessively painful.